Battle of Pancorbo

The Battle of Pancorbo was fought on 31 October 1808 during the Peninsular War. The Spanish army of Joaquin Blake y Joyes, initially surprised by the French attack, engaged in a fighting retreat which prevented the French general Francois Joseph Lefebvre from destroying the army.

Background
The Battle of Bailen saw the complete destruction of the French II Corps, with 2,000 being killed and over 17,000 becoming prisoners of war. When news of the catastrophe reached Zaragoza in early August, the French withdrew from the first Siege of Zaragoza, and, by 17 August, the siege was entirely lifted; the French had lost 4,000 men, while the Spanish lost 5,000. A few weeks later, the defeat at the Battle of Vimeiro in Portugal led to the French surrendering Portugal to the British, and Emperor Napoleon I had the French troops withdraw to the Ebro River in northern Spain, abandoning most of the Iberian Peninsula. However, Napoleon gathered his forces for a counterattack which he would lead in person. By the fall of 1808, the French had recovered from the initial shock of the rebellion, and Napoleon received a guarantee from Czar Alexander I of Russia that Russia would not attack France in his absence. In November 1808, Napoleon set out with an audacious plan; he would feign weakness in the French center in order to lure the Spanish across the Ebro, where they would be flanked, trapped, and destroyed.

Battle
On 31 October 1808, Francois Joseph Lefebvre ordered his 24,000-strong IV Corps forward early, and his army met a 19,000-strong Spanish army under Joaquin Blake y Joyes at Pancorbo in the Basque Country. The Spanish were surprised, but they rallied for a tenacious fighting retreat, preventing Lefebvre from completing the encirclement of the Spanish army. Blake was warned about the precariousness of his position, so he withdrew through an opening. Napoleon ordered Lefebvre and Marshal Claude-Victor Perrin to pursue, but they were unable to pin Blake down, leaving the battle a draw.